In Our Own Image — Fred Ritchin
- To the “fluidity of the digital”, Ritchin means that photography nowadays no longer reflects the reality of things, nor does it have enough meaning to be documented, because they can often be edited, changed, and faked in post. Digital fluidity is the loss of the true meaning of the photograph, it no longer represents the photographer’s perspective, nor does it prove the situation of the person photographed, while the photographic reality contains more of the subjective will of the picture editor, which is fragmented, is incomplete. Nowadays, like Photoshop, this software can edit pictures, by adding or removing elements from the picture, to make a new picture that can represent a completely different meaning from the original one.
- Though nowadays the photograph does not always reflect reality, it still can reproduce the scene and figure through pictures, where we can already see everything and do not need to use our imagination. While compare to other technology like text, reading text tests our reading ability and imagination. The picture is reproduced through imagination inspired by the text, and each person’s reproduction of the picture will be different, and the text is not perfect in describing every detail in the scene. The video seems better than the text, and it may be even better than the photograph because it allows things to move. It captures the movements of everything and provides a direct visual scene to the viewer, which is more real for recording than photographs. Virtual reality provides a perspective that almost matches human vision and creates a world that is visually realistic, however, the content of virtual reality is not always about realism and is often for entertainment and amusement. Books, just like text, it is necessary to use our imagination through reading, and their content may not always be realistic.